Monday, March 31, 2014

Negotiating While Being a Woman

Negotiation is a fraught topic for women. We are unused to asking for things, and when we do, we are likely to be punished for it, so no wonder we don't ask in the first place.

A recent case in point was highlighted here, where a candidate was given a tenure track offer, and when she tried to negotiate, the offer was withdrawn. Now, granted, this was in philosophy rather than astronomy, but it's still pretty alarming.

There's been a bunch of internet chatter about whether or not she should have negotiated to begin with or whether she did it the right way or the wrong way on Slate, Forbes, and even the New York Times. And if you read the comments on the Inside Higher Ed post (pro-tip: never read the comments) several people condemn the negotiator as being "a difficult colleague" or "delusional."

This just illustrates the double bind women face in negotiation. Always negotiate, we are told. Because we don't negotiate, we have lower starting salaries than our male peers, which compounds over the course of our careers. Don't negotiate like a girl. On the other hand, if we negotiate too forcefully (i.e. like a man), we can face retribution.

Now, there is plenty of good advice out there on strategies for negotiation. The trouble is, none of this addresses the underlying problem that both men and women treat women negotiators more poorly than men. As Amanda Hess says in Slate, maybe we should be asking the employers to be less sexist when negotiating with women instead.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Career Profiles: Astronomer to Tenure Track Faculty at a Small Liberal Arts College

The AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy and the AAS Employment Committee have compiled dozens of interviews highlighting the diversity of career trajectories available to astronomers. The interviews share advice and lessons learned from individuals on those paths.

Below is our interview with an astronomer turned tenure track faculty at a small liberal arts college. She went directly from graduate school into her current position and loves her job. If you have questions, suggestions, advice to share, etc. about this career path, please leave a comment below.

For access to all our Career Profile Project interviews, please visit http://aas.org/jobs/career-profiles. We plan to post a new career profile to this blog every first and third Thursday of the month.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

What should I do if I witness sexual harassment?



This public service message of the Department of Homeland Security applies not only to unattended backpacks in a public place; it applies to unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature that has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual's performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment.  In other words, sexual harassment.

Under the law, supervisors may have a special responsibility to report incidents or allegations of sexual harassment to their employer.  This responsibility should be made clear to them.  Many workplaces, and some states (e.g. California's AB 1825), require periodic training of supervisors (e.g., faculty who supervise undergraduate or graduate research) about their reporting responsibilities.  That is not what I'm writing about today.

I'm writing about Bystander Intervention.

If you saw rape occurring, you would very likely call the police.  But what if you see a couple smiling at a party, and later notice the drunken couple stumbling outside with muted protests coming from one of them?  Would it be appropriate to go up to strangers, or close acquaintances, and ask "Is everything alright?"  Or to go to the host/hostess of the event and say "I have concerns about something I've seen"? What if the party is at your boss or supervisor's house, or the situation arises in a lab at night without alcohol?  What if one of the members of the couple is your boss or supervisor?

And what if it is unsafe to say something directly to the participants?  What then?

I don't have all the answers and would welcome reader feedback as to what they would do, have done, or wish others had done on their behalf under such difficult circumstances.

For additional reading:
Northwestern University Sexual Harassment FAQ
NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center Sexual Harassment Booklet
International Labour Organization Jakarta Office

Monday, March 24, 2014

Women Biographies Lacking on Wikipedia

I have heard for a while that men create and edit Wikipedia articles more than women by a huge factor -- something like ten to one.  Whatever the reasons for this are, a bad consequence is that there are many prominent women who do not have biographies on Wikipedia.  The Royal Society in the UK has recently undertaken an "edit-athon" to create more biographies for deserving women scientists and engineers. That got me thinking --- why not write a few myself?  If you would like to do the same but are not sure how to do it in practice, I outline here the steps to write such biographies.  The steps are simple, but it took a bit of effort to figure them out!

There are certain requirements to writing a Wikipedia article about a person.  The first is to make sure an article does not already exist.  The second is to make sure the person is notable, which is defined for academics as being "notably influential in the world of ideas" and with citable sources to prove it.  Awards or highly referenced papers count as citable sources.  Also the article must be about someone other than the author.  If the article is about a living person, it is best to consult with them to make sure they approve before undertaking the project.


Thursday, March 20, 2014

Career Profiles: Astronomer to Senior Staff Scientist in Industry

The AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy and the AAS Employment Committee have compiled dozens of interviews highlighting the diversity of career trajectories available to astronomers. The interviews share advice and lessons learned from individuals on those paths.

Below is our interview with James Marshall, an astronomer turned Senior Staff Scientist in industry, doing government contracting to provide science, engineering, and IT support. If you have questions, suggestions, advice to share, etc. about this career path, please leave a comment below.

For access to all our Career Profile Project interviews, please visit http://aas.org/jobs/career-profiles. We plan to post a new career profile to this blog every first and third Thursday of the month.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Astronomy Postdoctoral Positions where EPO is Explicitly Included & Valued

Each year postdoc applicants ask -- besides the NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship, are there other astronomy postdoctoral opportunities in which education/outreach efforts are explicitly included and valued as part of your effort? 

Below is the list I've compiled so far. If you know of other opportunities, please post a comment or send me an email. I'll then post the final list to the AstroBetter Wiki, astrobites, and aas.org (if they're interested), and/or anywhere else people suggest. 

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

ADVICE: When to Say Yes, How to Say No.


Today's guest blogger is Fran Bagenal. Fran is a faculty member at the University of Colorado at Boulder and a former editor of CSWA's STATUS magazine. She was on the science teams of the Galileo mission to Jupiter and the Deep Space 1 mission to Comet Borrelly. She heads the plasma teams on New Horizons that will flyby Pluto in 2015 and on Juno that will go into orbit over the poles of Jupiter in 2016.

Service responsibilities (that's basically everything work-related that's not research or teaching) can be fun and rewarding. They can also be a burden. And as one advances in one's career the service load can sometimes be overwhelming.  "But", I hear you wail, "what do you do when people keep asking you to do things?"

1 - Wait 24 hours before responding to a request. If it's on the phone, say it's your policy, or say you have been told by your advisor/chair/spouse to wait 24 hours - and that you will get back to them in 24 hours via email (not phone - that gives them another chance to twist your arm).  This gives you time to think.

2 - If the service request is substantial seek advice from an adviser, supervisor, department chair, senior colleague - preferably all of the above. Your supervisor(s) need to know your service burden - and if it is adding up, they should to help you. Better research labs and academic departments will protect their junior staff so that they can get on with the most important things: publications and proposals.

Monday, March 17, 2014

Do Women Have an Advantage in Faculty Searches?


Ahh, we are halfway through the month of March. There is more sunlight. The Kepler field is rising. And, the faculty search season begins to bear fruit, and we learn (often through the Job Rumor Mill) who has received a faculty offer.

The faculty search process is enormously stressful to the postdoctoral fellow community, who are competing in a very oversubscribed market. Every March I hear this frustration boil over (expressed perhaps as an off-hand remark over coffee, or in a snippet of conversation I catch in the hallways) with that most poisonous of analyses: Dr. So-and-so received the job offer because she is a woman.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Career Profiles: Astronomer to Data Scientist at Fidelity Investments

The AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy and the AAS Employment Committee have compiled dozens of interviews highlighting the diversity of career trajectories available to astronomers. The interviews share advice and lessons learned from individuals on those paths.

Below is our interview with Melissa Nysewander, an astronomer turned data scientist at Fidelity Investments. If you have questions, suggestions, advice to share, etc. about this career path, please leave a comment below.

For access to all our Career Profile Project interviews, please visit http://aas.org/jobs/career-profiles. We plan to post a new career profile to this blog every first and third Thursday of the month.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Response #1 to arguments against affirmative action

Image credit: NPR vis Wordle
Last year presented a hypothetical scenario in which a university incentivized an astronomy department to diversify their faculty. I wrote
A top-25 astronomy department has a major gender imbalance on their faculty. Let's say the fraction of women professors is below 10% of the overall faculty (This is a safe example since we don't actually know of such a department, do we? Right? Anyone?). 
Let's suppose that the upper administrators at said hypothetical university (e.g. the Dean of Sciences) would like to address this problem with a radical approach. If the astronomy department conducts a programmatic search for a woman junior professor and identifies a candidate that meets the high bar expected of the university and department, then a special faculty line will be made available that won't count against future departmental hires.
I then solicited arguments against such an effort. I had several motivations in soliciting these arguments. First, I really want to get the lay of the land. I've heard scattered bits and pieces of arguments against affirmative action policies (e.g. "They're unfair to white men!" or "Women are getting jobs unfairly."), and I like to be prepared when discussing them. The comments I received motivated me to read up on the subject, and talk to more knowledgeable friends and experts. I also wanted to spark a community discussion on the topic, which based on the comments to my first post, on Facebook and in emails sent to me, I think I succeeded, at least amongst the people paying any sort of attention to the issue.

(Note that Joan Schmelz wrote an excellent, related piece on affirmative action yesterday). 

Monday, March 10, 2014

Affirmative Action

Participants of the Northeast Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics at Penn State

I recently had the privilege of being an invited speaker at the Northeast Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics at Penn State on January 17-19. It was a three-day regional conference for undergraduates interested in physics and one of eight regional physics conferences organized by the American Physical Society. I spoke on gender issues: unconscious bias, stereotype threat, and impostor syndrome. It was a fantastic experience. The young women I met were smart, articulate, and confident. They listened attentively, laughed when appropriate, and asked insightful questions. In fact, the question time went way over and spilled well into the slot scheduled for lunch. I came away with the feeling that, if these women were any indication, then the future of physics was in good hands.

Friday, March 7, 2014

AASWomen for March 7, 2014

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of March 7, 2014
eds: Michele M. Montgomery, Daryl Haggard, Nick Murphy, & Nicolle Zellner

This week's issues:

1. Sometimes Being Good Isn’t Enough
2. Part II Nail Salons: Appropriate Astronomy Women’s Group Venue? Survey Results
3. The 2013 CSWA Demographics Survey: Portrait of a Generation of Women in Astronomy
4. Childcare Available at Boston AAS Meeting
5. Career Profile: Astronomer to Director for the Centre of Excellence for All-Sky Astrophysics
6. L’OrĂ©al-UNESCO Women in Science Fellowships: UK and Ireland
7. How to Level the Playing Field for Women in Science
8. In Academia, Women Collaborate Less With Their Same-Sex Juniors
9. Sexism plagues major chemistry conference: Boycott emerges amid growing outrage
10. A Mighty Girl: Mighty Careers
11. Change sought in women's depiction in text books
12. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter
13. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter
14. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Career Profiles: Astronomer to Director for the Centre of Excellence for All-Sky Astrophysics

The AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy and the AAS Employment Committee have compiled dozens of interviews highlighting the diversity of career trajectories available to astronomers. The interviews share advice and lessons learned from individuals on those paths.

Below is our interview with Bryan Gaensler, an astronomer turned Professor of Physics & Astronomy and Director for the Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics. If you have questions, suggestions, advice to share, etc. about this career path, please leave a comment below.

For access to all our Career Profile Project interviews, please visit http://aas.org/jobs/career-profiles. We plan to post a new career profile to this blog every Thursday.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Guest Post: Sometimes being good isn’t enough

Today's guest blogger is Dr. Stephen Rinehart.  Dr. Rinehart is the Associate Chief of the Laboratory for Observational Cosmology at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.  He was awarded his Ph.D. in Physics from Cornell University in 1999, and came to Goddard as a post-doc in 2001, becoming a civil servant in 2004.  He is married to another astronomer, and the proud father of a 2-year old girl.


This is for all the men out there.  Ok, for the women too. 

Are you a good person?  In particular, are you a good person when it comes to supporting equitable treatment for everyone?  I like to believe that, at least since reaching adulthood, I’ve been a good person (at least in this context).  That’s not to say that I have been without fault, but I have certainly tried to be a good person.  Of course, the question is, “what does it mean to be a good person?”

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Part II Nail Salons: Appropriate Astronomy Women’s Group Venue? Survey Results

Today’s guest blogger is Stella Offner. Stella is a Hubble Fellow who works on modeling the formation of low-mass stars.
 
On 11 Feb 2014,  I wrote a post reflecting on whether nail salons are an appropriate venue for a women's astronomy group outing. This issue was contentious within our group and, apparently, also within the astronomy community. The post received over 1200 views, and 131 people completed the survey. In this post, I will share the very interesting poll responses. Thanks to everyone who weighed in! First, some main takeaway points:

Monday, March 3, 2014

The 2013 CSWA Demographics Survey: Portrait of a Generation of Women in Astronomy

Meredith Hughes
The below is reproduced from the January 2014 Status: A report on Women in Astronomy.  The 2013 CSWA Demographics Survey, by A. Meredith Hughes, Wesleyan University.

As we consider how best to promote the full participation of women in astronomy, it is important to use quantitative methods to monitor progress and identify problems. Accordingly, collecting demographic data is central to the mission of the AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy (CSWA).  For the past 15 years, CSWA has built upon demographic data collection efforts spearheaded by a group of astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in 1992. The initial STScI survey was the first to investigate astronomy independent of physics. The CSWA's 1999 and 2004 surveys maintained a consistent methodology, and a large body of longitudinal data has resulted. To this day, the STScI/CSWA data set is unique in including not only PhD-granting astronomy departments, but also the astronomy portions of some of the large combined physics and astronomy departments (e.g., Johns Hopkins, MIT, Stony Brook) and a sampling of non-academic institutions where many PhD astronomers are employed (e.g., NRAO, NOAO, and SAO). It also differs from AAS demographics surveys in that it does not depend on membership in the AAS, which can vary substantially by academic level and institution. The results of previous surveys are presented in the proceedings of the Conference on Women in Astronomy (1992) [1] and in past issues of Status (Urry 2000 [2], Hoffman & Urry 2004 [3]).

The current survey marks a decade since the last data collection effort and two decades since the initiation of the STScI demographics survey. With a rich, 20-year-long data set – and nearly 100% participation from the institutions surveyed – we are now able to provide an overview of how the representation of women in astronomy has evolved over the last generation. We obtained the data and contact information for previous surveys from Karen Kwitter, and much of the data collection and initial analysis was conducted with the help of volunteers from the community: Julia Kamenetzky, Brian Morsony, Karly Pitman, Stephanie LaMassa, and Johanna Teske. Surveys were initially sent to department chairs in December 2012, requesting that chairs report the demographics of their department as of January 1, 2013.